2nd Jodo Gashuku with Andy Poulos in Alexandra, Australia

April, 1st to 3rd 2011

In the weekend of 01/04 to 03/04 Andy visited us by the second time in Alexandra for our yearly Gashuku.

On Friday evening, right after arriving, he took time to work with Silke and I on the Omote series from Kusarigamajutsu. This was followed by six Keibo (short truncheon) techniques which Paul Maloney Sensei received from Shimizu Sensei in the old days and passed on to him. Even though these techniques were created for the Tokio Police and don’t belong to our Ryu, it was very interesting to see how much related to Tanjojutsu they are.

On Saturday morning the whole group got together at 9 am to train outdoors in the garden of our new house. The weather was very nice throughout the weekend, being fresh and crisp in the morning and warming up later on. We focused on Kihon Tandoku, Sotai and Uchikomi until lunch time, which gave us almost 4 hours of work. In the afternoon my students worked on Omote, learning Tachi Otoshi and Tsuba Wari, as well as receiving corrections for Tsuki Zue, Suigetsu and Shamen, which they learned on last year’s Gashuku. Silke and I kept working on Kage, which we had completed a couple of months before.

In the evening, after 7 hours of hard training, we all got together for a barbecue (or "barbie", like the Australians like to call it), some beer and good wine, which proves that such traditions of the Shinto Muso Ryu family are truly international.

On Sunday morning we warmed up with Kihon and went straight on to Kata work, with Andy helping everybody to polish what had been done the day before. In the last 45 minutes we had an Embu, and all participants had to show something they had learned to the rest of the group. We bowed out after another 4 hours of training, so that I could drive Andy to the airport in Melbourne.

All in all a great time was had by the group in a very relaxed atmosphere. Andy conducted the Gashuku with attention to everyone and a great sense of humour, and we are looking forward to have him again in November, as he has been kind enough to accept our invitation to start coming twice a year.

Gabriel da Fonseca

Omote
Omote

Omote
Omote

Group
Kage

Group
Kage

Group
Group



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